


Become What We've Always Been

by irisbleufic



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Aftermath, Canon Disabled Character, Drift Side Effects, Exhaustion, First Time, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Ghost Drifting, Idiots in Love, Jewish Character, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), Laboratories, Lists, M/M, Napping, Science Husbands, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:57:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Hermann doesn't have enough time to experience a crisis over Newton's response to his unvoiced request; he's drifting into that self-same lethargy, eyelids heavy, his arm across the cane gone slack.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Become What We've Always Been

**Author's Note:**

> A shy lurker-friend requested an immediately-post-film scenario from Hermann's POV, so I’ll gladly answer. I've loosely used [**this piece of artwork**](http://tankens.tumblr.com/post/55816664210/theyve-earned-a-nap) by [**tankens**](http://tankens.tumblr.com/) as a starting point, also as per my reader’s bidding.

Their first spontaneous embrace does not take Hermann by surprise. However, in some twelve years of knowing one another—four via written correspondence; three filled with sporadic, spiteful academic conference and necessary PPDC encounters; five as close working colleagues in Hong Kong—it is, nonetheless, their _first_. He tells himself as Newton's arms close around him (even as his own close around Newton just as tightly) that, statistically, circumstances are more in favor of casual physical contact than they've ever been.

_Item: how easy he'd found it to manhandle an unconscious Newton out of that nightmarish, clap-trap neural interface and, before racing to inform Pentecost, manhandle him yet again into a chair and fetch him a glass of water._

_Item: how second-nature it had seemed for him to shake Newton's hand and, yes, even hold to it steadfast as they'd pitched into the drift._

_Item: how little time they'd spent_ not _clinging to one another's arms or shoulders in the time between frantic re-emergence and their arrival in LOCCENT to deliver their grim findings._

_Item: how he'd never, even when relations between them had been at their worst, avoided—_

"Dude," Newton is half laughing, half gasping against the side of Hermann's neck as they stand swaying together in elation; Tendo brushes past and comments in a low, clear tone, "My bunk's just down the hall if you want it." Hermann is sure Newton hasn't heard; otherwise, he'd have turned to castigate their colleague in a blink. "Dude, ease _up_. It's getting hot in here. I can't breathe."

His echo of Raleigh from Mako's radio transmission mere moments before startles Hermann; he promptly lets go and takes a step back. "True enough," he agrees, although Newton is still grinning madly and has him by the forearms, and, of course, too _right_ , because his cane is lost in the jubilant crush of bodies and they're running on adrenaline alone. "It wouldn't do to have you unconscious for a second time in twenty-four hours."

"You're lucky you didn't pass out," Newton says, taking Hermann by the arm and steering him through a nearby opening created by Marshall Hansen recently having vacated it. "Hell, _I'm_ lucky I didn't pass out, although the pilots all say it gets easier with repetition and even more so once you've got the most compatible partner you can find, and—" He drops his train of thought in order to situate them up against the command console. Hermann's cane is there, exactly where he'd left it.

"What was I saying?" he asked, letting go of Hermann's arm to wipe his damp palms on his ruined jeans; the gesture is curious, uncoordinated, and Hermann does not let it pass unnoticed. "Not important, I guess. We're rock stars now. Nothing matters more than _that_."

Before Hermann can contest this statement—something he _fully_ intends to do—Tendo pushes past Newton's left elbow, sneaks behind them, and briefly catches Hermann's eye as he meaningfully sets a hand on Hermann's shoulder.

 _Bugger it all to pieces_ , Hermann thinks; Newton is _glowing_ at him again, and all it takes is one side-step, two, _three_ for Newton to catch him by the shoulders and _squeeze_. Their second embrace is only surprising because it's not spontaneous, not _quite_ , and Newton's right arm stays exactly where it is for the next thirty minutes while a kaleidoscope of faces come to them in dazzling succession to offer congratulations.

"We only did what anybody would have done," Hermann says at length, sagging a bit against Newton's side, and he would be lying to himself if he were to deny how warm the contact leaves him, how _needed_ he feels as he watches the fine flush previously confined to Newton's neck creep progressively into his cheeks. "Or so I should hope."

"The other guy who tried drifting with a kaiju didn't do it for selfless reasons," says Newton, and Hermann needs not ask to know that he means Hannibal Chau. "I'm thinking we're alone in this mess of crazy. For sure." He sags in kind, his fingers flexing against Hermann's elbow. "I'm wiped, man, and it's loud here. Thoughts?"

Hermann has quite a number at present, most of which he'd rather not air within earshot of certain nosy J-Technicians. "We ought to head back to the laboratory," he suggests, and Newton looks more than slightly perplexed. "You left a considerable mess, and we're covered in— _well_."

"Yeah," Newton agrees, radiating relief, an apparently reasonable excuse having been provided.

Odds now being what they are, Hermann is impressed that they reach the lab without incident. What his brain means by _incident_ , he'd best not quantify just yet. Newton clears what's left of his makeshift-Pons wreckage with minimal complaint, after which he joins Hermann on their second-hand sofa and demands the weapons-grade decontaminating wipes Hermann has been using on his cane, his shoes, and any exposed skin.

Newton removes his battered leather jacket and tosses it on top of Hermann's discarded parka. "I don't know how smart it would be to keep those," he says, struggling to remove his boots, and the incongruity of his statement tempts Hermann toward laughter. He keeps his mouth firmly closed.

"Were I you, I'd think about that in the morning," he says instead, watching as Newton scrubs at his hands, his cheeks, his newly exposed feet.

"Where have you been, my man? It _is_ morning, as in _ass-crack of_."

"Saving your sorry _arse_ from being swallowed by a predatory extraterrestrial hive-mind."

"Oh, so we're correcting my totally valid Northeast US rendition of the King's English now, are we, very mature," gripes Newton, and, to Hermann's relief, his words carry no sting of offense. "I don't know about you, but I could use a boiling-point shower before we go any further. Unless you think the reports can wait until our intrepid heroes have returned and everyone else has gotten over their staggeringly impressive alcohol consumption. Do you have _any_ idea how many bottles of vodka Tendo and the Russians had stashed away between the three of them?"

"Doubtless too many for comfort," Hermann sighs, and plucks several ragged, wadded-up wipes out of Newton's hand. He's trembling with exhaustion, Hermann can't help but notice; in fact, it's nothing less than sheer luck that his own fingers are steady. "I do _not_ happen to think the reports can wait, although I _do_ believe that brevity is the soul of wit, so if we part ways, freshen up, and then meet back here for debriefing, I should think we'll be on our way to a well earned rest within two hours."

Newton, too tired to offer any smart-mouthed commentary, simply nods, rolls his filthy socks back on, and leaves. Hermann stares at their discarded outerwear and Newton's boots for a moment before coming to his senses; he fetches his parka, which is in far better nick than Newton's travesty of a leather jacket, gives it a thorough wipe-down, and drapes it over the sofa before he departs.

Newton's quarters are several doors down from Hermann's. It's tempting to mount the stairs and press an ear to Newton's door, but Hermann resists. He reaches his own doorstep with a head full of rising echoes, fumbles his keys into the lock just as the muted impression of water hitting a shower curtain, his goose-pimpled back, his gel-and-sweat-stiffened hair, washes over . . . 

_Item: how he'd never, even when relations between them had been at their worst, avoided contact._

In fact, the nearer they'd got to Ground Zero, to the twin problems of increased kaiju traffic and closing the Breach, he'd actively sought it. And not just for work, no; there had been mutual-disparagement-and-veiled-admiration coffee breaks, late-night dinners in the refectory passed off as accidental meetings, and deliberate laboratory line-crossings solely as an excuse to invade each other's space.

Hermann can't shed his clothes quickly enough, and hot water is a welcome distraction. Being in his own shower seems to equalize (although not entirely cancel out) the ghost-drift feedback he's getting from a few doors down. He's read about this, even interviewed Jaeger pilots on the very subject of its effects. _Stronger in separation_ , so many of them had said, _no matter how short the distance_.

As he stiffly dries himself off and dresses, he feels a catch at the back of his throat, some hesitation before his next breath. He draws his fingers across his belly again, only to quickly yank down his shirt and tuck it in. As if in apology, Newton seems to reciprocate: knuckles dragged up colorful, shivery forearms as he curtly rolls up one cuff, and then the other.

Hermann makes his way back to the lab, less steady on his feet than before.

Newton is already there, bent over Hermann's computer console—hair damp and disarrayed, as if he hadn't managed to rid it of product, tie absent and shirt untucked—with a plaster stuck haphazardly over the scrape on his forehead.

"I found the template," he says, fingers freezing mid-flight across the keys.

Hermann commits to the touch he's so recklessly permitted himself, gently prying up one side of the bandage and lifting it to peer underneath. When Newton winces, he smooths it back down. "There's no infection, at least," he says, giving what Newton's already written a cursory glance. "I'll go fetch some antibiotic ointment from the first-aid cabinet while you crack on with that."

"No good deed goes unpunished," mutters Newton, but he sounds grateful.

Salving and re-plastering takes little enough time. If Newton manages to tilt his head into Hermann's touch and even earn the briefest brush of Hermann's fingers through his hair before Hermann clears his throat, sets aside the ointment, and pulls up a chair, neither one of them seems to mind. They lean close as they work, shoulder to shoulder, and the report is complete save for Hermann's insistent copy-editing when Newton's drifts off momentarily, head jerking up in shock.

"Sorry," he says, yawning behind his left hand. "Don't think I got that. Comma?"

Hermann can't help but notice there's a bead of water caught in his ring, settled perfectly into the skull's cast-silver eye socket. He's never seen Newton remove it to wash his hands, so he mustn't remove it for purposes of showering, either. He looks down at his own hands folded in his lap.

"I think it can wait," he sighs. "We're neither of us functioning properly."

"That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me," Newton murmurs, yawning again, "but I seriously don't want to leave this hanging. The sooner it's on Herc's desk, the less likely he'll be to pester us while we're sleeping, you know? Let's grab coffee, take a breather, and wrap this bad boy up."

In these circumstances, Newton's idea of coffee constitutes instant powder dumped into water he's boiled in a beaker of somewhat dubious origins, subsequently dumped _again_ into the only pair of mugs he can find to hand, which aren't so much filthy as sugar-crusted and unappealing.

They sit side by side on the sofa in silence, sipping and staring blankly at the floor. Newton's coat is a wreck, there's simply no disputing it, and Hermann wonders if his habitual dry-cleaner-slash-tailor would even hear of making an attempt at cleaning and repair. His parka has fallen down from where he'd draped it to dry and crumpled in his lap, one sleeve-cuff narrowly missing his coffee.

"I can't remember what I was going to say," says Newton. "I'm sure it was important."

"Can't have been terribly," replies Hermann, and yawns so widely he can't think of anything except shoving his mug onto the table behind them. "Any longer and I was bound to've spilled that everywhere, so I'll thank you not to do the same."

Newton manages a short, high-pitched laugh and reaches back to set down his mug in kind. In an effort to sit up straighter, he instead tilts sideways and ends up sprawled in Hermann's lap, his head pillowed on the bunched-up parka, one arm hooked carelessly around Hermann's neck in a vain attempt to pull himself back up. In his sleep-deprived state, it's the most endearing thing Hermann has ever seen.

"What a mess you are," he tells Newton, briefly stroking Newton's wrist before letting his hand dart to catch his cane, which had been propped between them against the cushion. He draws it up and across Newton's chest, settling it there. 

_Rest with me for a while_ , he thinks. _You're safe now, so just lie still_.

"Couldn't get up if I wanted," Newton mumbles, snuggling into the hood, and he's out.

Hermann doesn't have enough time to experience a crisis over Newton's response to his unvoiced request; he's drifting into that self-same lethargy, eyelids heavy, his arm across the cane gone slack. 

_Item: how he can remember, sharp as waking, what he'd seen in the blue-edged dark._

Hours later, when Hermann opens his eyes, the man fast asleep in his lap is not a surprise. Anything that Hermann can think to do, think to say, would ruin the moment's strange fragility, would disabuse him of the notion that this is how they have always been: together in waking, together in sleep, together in all things experienced between these states and beyond.

Instead, Newton ruins the moment by apprehensively slitting his blood-shot eye.

"I was afraid to wake you up," he admits. "You're not a morning person on the best of days, and that's _after_ you've dragged your charming, grumpy self down here." He lifts the hand still curled around Hermann's neck, a brief caress, and then points to the clock on the wall. "Six hours, Hermann. We've been out for six. Fucking. Hours. How does that even—"

Hermann catches Newton's hand before it can fall onto the cane, deprive him of contact any longer. "Newton, it's of no import," he snaps—harsh, he hopes, but kind. "Won't you come to my room?"

Newton blinks at him a few times, owlish, eyes straining to find Hermann's under the onslaught of artificial light. He finally remembers the broken glasses fisted in his right hand and, flicking them open as best he can with his other hand still clasped in Hermann's, shoves them into place.

"Is that a come-on, dude? You'd better not be messing around, because I _swear_ —"

The easy part is putting Newton's hand back where it had been while they slept, is lifting him from where he lies in a cocoon of decontaminant-filmed fabric until he's sitting just _so_ , is leaning forward until their lips touch and Hermann's mouth opens to swallow Newton's sigh.

"Because I will not apologize, after all we've seen, after all we've _been_ ," Hermann whispers when he can, for he's hungry, _they're_ hungry, and the brush of Newton's tongue guides him deeper, grants him _more_ , "for wanting you in my bed."

At that, Newt's groaning more than kissing back, twisting frantically in Hermann's arms until the cane goes clattering and the parka's shoved aside to make room where Hermann wants him most. "Yes, oh God, _yes_ I will come to your room, do not pass _go_ , do not collect . . . "

The non-sequitur is lost on Hermann, but the first part of Newton's response isn't. And while they don't pass _go_ , not so far as he's aware, they also don't make it to Hermann's quarters without incident (the Shatterdome's halls are vast, nooked and crannied, full of quiet corners for conspiring in).

"Get this _stupid_ —" Newton gasps when they're hidden, safe from sight, stumbling over each other to get to Hermann's narrow bed "—thing off, oh my God, why do you bother when it's just going to be us down there and you're hatching super-secret plans to jump my bones as soon as you've fussed over my wounds like a goddamn nanny or something and I'm exhausted because I've had my ass handed to me by no fewer than three different kaiju in one fucking _night_ and my guard is down—"

"Be quiet," Hermann implores him, and there's more kissing, which seems to help, and then he pulls away to undress himself and Newton _is absolutely silent_ as he stares. He doesn't move as Hermann reaches to fold down his sleeve-cuffs one at a time, scarcely breathes as Hermann unbuttons Newton's shirt and tucks both hands beneath the waistband of his jeans to pull him in close. "Off with these now, all right?"

Hermann doesn't expect this as they roll onto the duvet, doesn't expect Newton to shudder and gasp like he's never been touched before at the first press of skin against skin. Hermann holds him, kisses his temple with eyes shut tight and knows ( _blue-edged whisper all the loving way down_ ) it's been years since either one of them has had this, has _wanted_ this with anyone, and Newton is already close, too close, so Hermann presses both hands to the damp small of Newton's back and marvels at the relieved exhalation that passes between them as they start to move.

"Oh, darling," he murmurs, throat constricting with something beyond both fondness and lust, something he hadn't known he harbored, "oh, darling, why didn't you _say_ —"

"Like you'd have ever let me get a word in edgewise," Newton chokes, and Hermann feels the stutter low in Newton's chest, feels the spike and swell of _wanting_ so great they can scarcely contain it. "You feel so good, Christ, how _can_ you feel so good—"

"Newton, _shhh_ ," Hermann whispers, "you're raving," and it's true; he thinks that if they ever leave this bed it will be a wonder, thinks that if he were ever to lose this now, Newton writhing against him and under him and clinging like the world might yet end, he'd lose everything for which he'd been too foolish to know he'd been fighting.

And so he says it again—"Oh, darling; hush, _ah_ , Newton, I did it for _you_ "—and Newton sobs against Hermann's mouth as his hips jerk hard; he's coming and _they're_ coming and Hermann knows now that he's never felt such fervent belonging as this.

( _Item: how we were, how we are, how we become what we've always been._ )


End file.
